If buying new, I would make a cardboard cutout of the diameter of your carboy and take it with you to the store. I'm only assuming you want two to fit on the bottom at one time.

Dave

I am planning to take an actual carboy with me. :-) Looks like that Sears model (and a couple similar to it) do have fixed shelves used as conduit for coolant. Darn. I'm still going into Sears soon to see what they have.

am I mistaken or is that a twelve pack of cheep beer on the bottom shelf?

Must keep that cheap beer fresh.

I think that is actually "butter".

ahh okay, that makes slightly more sense. still don't get the strawberries and g-fruit.

Wow off topic much?

kgs,

I have two used fridges, one for keggerator the other for fermentation. I wish that I had a chest freezer for fermentation just based on footprint v. capacity and efficiency but I can see the problems with lifting fermenters out. If you could rig up a transfer method, syphon or pump and put a chest freezer on wheels so you could roll it over to your kettle that would be ideal in my opinion.

I would go with the fridge as the upright freezer will have shelves made of cooling coils. Unless you definitely do not want to have a couple of carboys on the shelves....

Dave

I am starting to see what you mean -- the upright freezers in the size range I'm looking at seem to have shelves made of cooling coils. The larger freezers are too big. Boolean logic is coming in to play here.

If I attach a controller to a fridge, what happens to the freezer? I understand it's not usable for fermentation, but I don't know why. Is it on a separate control? Does it stay a usable freezer or is it rendered non-usable?

Many fridges today are actually cooled by the freezer coils which blow down into the refrigerator compartment. I think it would work anyway with a controller as long as the probe is in the fridge compartment.

Logged

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard P. Feynman

Laws are spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones. -Anacharsis

I am trying to remember my set up when I used a side by side fridge freezer for fermentation. I think the freezer part was just where I stored some extra grains in zip lock bags to ensure they were safe from bugs. The temp controller could only reliably keep one side at consistent setting. Another thing to keep in mind is that a full carboy or fermentation bucket is probably too heavy for most shelving. In my present incarnation I have a piece of wood cut to length that acts as a brace to support the shelf when I have carboys sitting on it.

Logged

Beer is an ancient beverage that has been consumed as part of a balanced diet for centuries - it contains the goodness of sprouted grain extracted into rich liquid and fermented to produce a nutritional 'liquid cereal' beverage.

I used a side-by-side when I first got into kegging. With two temperature controllers I controlled the freezer side and the fridge side. The freezer controller turned the refrigerator on and off. The fridge-side controller controlled a computer fan mounted in the duct between the sides, pulling colder air from the freezer to the fridge. This worked well for lagers at 36F and ales at 46F. The lager side also doubled as a conventional fridge for hops, bottles, etc.

EDIT - could be butter, though. It's hard to tell as all of those items look like cut and paste jobs that are not actually in the fridge/freezer.

Anyway, what the hell is that orange thing?

If it was me, I'd go with an old fridge with the freezer on top. At least, that's my eventual plan. Space to keep hops and things in the freezer, fridge for serving. Maybe my old Sanyo become a fermentation chamber.

So I gotta ask, how much did you pay for that butter? Because President is a pretty common grocery store brand and costs ~2 eur ($3). I ask because I just got back from 'American' shopping for prep for our 4th of July party, and I bought a box of Domino dark brown sugar for $8, and a pack of 4 dry ranch dressing packets for $15. Exporting is a hell of a business.

The standard 'fridge with freezer on top, as noted by Euge, uses the freezer to cool the refrigerator compartment.Set both controls (freezer and refrigerator compartment) to max cold.The probe from the external temp controller would be located in the refrigerator compartment (ideally attached to the fermenter or using a thermowell) will control the temp in the freezer and 'fridge compartment.The freezer will be the same temp as the refrigerator compartment.